Fuel cells produce electricity from chemical reactions. The chemical reactions typically cause a fuel, such as hydrogen, to react with oxygen to produce water vapor as a primary by-product. The hydrogen can be provided directly, in the form of hydrogen gas or liquid, or can be produced from other materials, such as hydrocarbon liquids or gasses. Fuel cell assemblies may include one or more fuel cells in a fuel cell housing that is coupled with a fuel canister containing the hydrogen and/or hydrocarbons. Fuel cell housings that are portable, coupled with fuel canisters that are portable, replaceable, and/or refillable, compete with batteries as a preferred electricity source to power a wide array of portable consumer electronics products, such as cell phones and personal digital assistants. The competitiveness of these fuel cell assemblies, when compared to batteries depends on a number of factors, including their size, efficiency, and reliability.
In a high temperature fuel cell system, such as a solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system, an oxidizing flow is passed through the cathode side of the fuel cell, while a reducing flow is passed through the anode side of the fuel cell. The oxidizing flow is typically air, while the reducing flow typically comprises a mixture of a hydrogen-rich gas created by reforming a hydrocarbon fuel source with an oxygen source, such as air, water vapor, or carbon dioxide. The fuel cell also has an electrolyte, which carries electrically charged particles, from one electrode to the other, and a catalyst, which speeds the reaction at the electrodes. The electrolyte plays a key role. It must permit only the appropriate ions to pass between the anode and cathode. Typically, the SOFC systems use a solid oxide or ceramic electrolytes. The fuel cell, typically operating at a temperature between 500° C. and 1000° C., enables the transport of negatively charged oxygen ions from the cathode flow stream to the anode flow stream, where the ions combine with either free hydrogen or hydrogen in a hydrocarbon molecule to form water vapor and/or with carbon monoxide to form carbon dioxide. The excess electrons from the negatively charged ions are routed back to the cathode side of the fuel cell through an electrical circuit completed between anode and cathode, resulting in an electrical current flow through the circuit.
The planar fuel cell design geometry is one of the typical geometries employed in fuel cells. Another typical geometry is a tubular design. A planar sandwich design can be implemented by most types of fuel cells including the SOFC systems, wherein the electrolyte is sandwiched between the anode and cathode electrodes, thereby forming a so-called membrane-electrode stack. The ceramic membranes used in SOFCs do not become electrically and ionically active until they reach very high temperatures and as a consequence the stacks have to run at temperatures ranging from 500° C. to 1000° C., as was mentioned supra. These high operating temperatures present some challenges hindering the SOFC technology. The components and interconnects in high temperature fuel cells must exhibit thermo-mechanical compatibility, their thermal expansion coefficients must match, and the materials must be tough enough and have similar enough thermo-mechanical properties to withstand mechanical stresses due to difference in thermal expansion. Furthermore, the material forming the bond between the layers in the stack must also be able to withstand the stress, temperatures and chemicals present in the fuel cell. Additionally, the process for creating such a stack must be reliable and compatible with high volume production techniques. The prior art fuel cell systems incorporate stacks that are prone to developing cracks upon thermal cycling and exhibiting thermal stress-induced failures at interconnects joining the components. Therefore, there is a need to provide a method for bonding fuel cell components, which results in fuel cell stacks that can withstand mechanical stresses upon thermal cycling and therefore can be effectively used in portable fuel cell systems that require a high-quality, long-lasting, and reliable power supply.
Glass frit materials are commonly used to bond together two substrates. Unfortunately, many glasses have very high viscosities at the desired bonding temperature, which requires excessive force to deform the intermediate frit material, and may damage portions of the substrate. Furthermore, no previously demonstrated glass material has shown the combination of required reflow temperature, chemical compatibility, melting temperature, coefficient of thermal explanation, and strength. Prior to development of the disclosed assembly, structures often had low strength, leaking, porous and low-yielding bonding.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an improved structure and method for producing an assembly of substrates mechanically attached with an intermediate glass bond layer.